On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find reality-based and largely trustworthy reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
But the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to favor that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the underlying crisis endures.
“What we have now is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the latest merger game.
